


and i will try to harmonize

by Odaigahara



Series: Soulmate September 2020 Plus [1]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alien Abduction, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Space, Anxiety | Virgil Sanders Needs a Hug, Hair Washing, Humans are space orcs, Implied/Referenced Torture, Language Barrier, M/M, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:33:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26568835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Odaigahara/pseuds/Odaigahara
Summary: Day 5: Sharing Intense Emotions*“So you go around rescuing people who get taken from their planets?” Emile made a weird head bob that might’ve been supposed to be a nod. “That’s really nice of you!”“Thank you,” Emile said. “Though I’m sorry to say for Humans it’s... not so easy as it might be for trafficking victims of Allied planets, since first contact hasn’t been established.”“Oh.” Patton felt a flicker of sadness over his soulmate’s ever-present dread. As always, he wanted to reach out, to shove as much love as possible down the line, to promise that he’d be there soon, he swore he would, just wait a little longer, but he wasn’t sure he could manage it right then. Even with a lifetime of preparing himself to meet whatever made his soulmate so terrified all the time, he didn’t have that much control over his emotions.He couldn’t even be sure how much fear he was leaking right now.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders/Morality | Patton Sanders
Series: Soulmate September 2020 Plus [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1932382
Comments: 28
Kudos: 177
Collections: Humans Are Space Orcs





	and i will try to harmonize

**Author's Note:**

> Am I doing Soulmate September wrong? Yes.
> 
> Do I care? Also yes, but it's unavoidable, so oh well. Also, huge thanks to alicat54c and GoldenMeme for beta reading!
> 
> TW's at end of chapter.

Patton was used to smiling when all he felt was overwhelming terror, but it didn’t seem to help in this case. The centipede squeezed in his hand-leg things, light pink markings flushing magenta, and the panther-porcupine bristled and drew back. Patton tried smiling with his lips closed, instead, and they eased.

That made sense, he guessed. The aliens who’d abducted him hadn’t reacted well to him smiling, either.

“I’m really sorry, but you’ll have to be in the Brehssen quarters,” the centipede was saying in English, a faint click-clacking trill over the words like a starling mimicking words. “We only have one room rated for Humans on board, and it’s... unavailable. But the Brehssen quarters have a good temperature for Humans, too! Very warm.”

“That sounds nice,” Patton said, making sure to keep his voice soft. The aliens flinched when he was loud, too, and the porcupine guy- Remy, he thought, or at least that was kinda how his name sounded- kept hissing all quiet under his breath, like he thought Patton couldn’t hear. He sounded like a confused teakettle. “What’s a Brehssen? I’m human, but I guess you know that since I, um, got abducted and everything-”

A bright light in the sky while he was on a road trip with his best friends. A rest stop, and going out to the back because he thought he saw a deer, and suddenly breathing in something sweet and heavy that made his legs into jelly-

And he’d woken up alone and tied down, except not very well because he snapped the restraints loose and the metallic white aliens didn’t seem to expect him to be able to move. And then he’d been in a cell, and they’d kept sedating him and not talking to him and at some point he’d just stopped being nice and kicked the wall until an alarm went off.

The aliens hadn’t seemed like they expected that, either.

“How did you find me?” Patton asked, because all he remembered was the alarms and a whole bunch of yelling, and then he’d been drugged again. “You’re not acting like you think I’ll attack you.”

Remy snorted and said something, low and chattering. The centipede- he’d said to call him Emile- said, markings going light again, “Your abductors used a government ship. They didn’t have a good explanation for the damage, so we were sent to investigate.”

Patton thought that made sense, but since he’d been drugged he couldn’t know for sure. “So you go around rescuing people who get taken from their planets?” Emile made a weird head bob that might’ve been supposed to be a nod. “That’s really nice of you!”

“Thank you,” Emile said. “Though I’m sorry to say for Humans it’s... not so easy as it might be for trafficking victims of Allied planets, since first contact hasn’t been established.”

“Oh.” Patton felt a flicker of sadness over his soulmate’s ever-present dread. As always, he wanted to reach out, to shove as much love as possible down the line, to promise that he’d be there soon, he swore he would, just wait a little longer, but he wasn’t sure he could manage it right then. Even with a lifetime of preparing himself to meet whatever made his soulmate so terrified all the time, he didn’t have that much control over his emotions. He couldn’t even be sure how much fear he was leaking right now. “So you’re gonna have to erase my memory?”

“No,” the centipede said, and Remy inched closer, curling his spiny tail around the other alien’s delicate form. Why was he doing that? “I’m afraid you- that is, our government won’t allow us to take you back. But there are places a Human can live here, and I’m certain since you’re so docile that we could find somewhere willing to take you in-”

“What?” Patton felt his own heart speeding up, his fear and his soulmate’s mingling together. “But that- you can’t just keep me here. I have friends, my mom’s gonna miss me, and I have to-” Find my soulmate, he didn’t say, because suddenly it didn’t feel like these aliens deserved to know this about him. Not with how they’d called him _docile_.

“Please don’t be alarmed,” Emile said, trilling accent getting worse. “I know it’s unfortunate, but we really don’t have a choice.”

Patton squeezed his eyes shut, pushed back the inconvenient tears. He couldn’t feel sad, not when it would add on to his soulmate’s suffering. He had to be calm and happy, for them. “Just take me to that room you mentioned,” he said. “I’m tired. I want to sleep.”

His soulmate’s dread spiked again, clawing at the inside of his chest with cold fingers and making the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

Patton wondered if he could get these aliens to teach him how to fly a spaceship, and whether they’d let him pilot one alone.

*

Two days. That was how long Patton took to think to ask what was in the Human quarters, and for Emile to say awkwardly, “Another human, actually. But as far as we can tell, he’s entirely feral. We didn’t want to risk putting you together.”

Patton frowned. He was in sleek gray clothes that were somehow both comfortable and not warming at all, like silk pajamas but shimmery, and for the past couple days all he’d eaten was fruit and strange bread he was pretty sure had been made from insects. It was gross, but the fruit was nice, and he was ravenously hungry all the time; whatever they thought he ate, it definitely wasn’t enough.

He was waiting another day, just to be sure they weren’t trying to decontaminate him or whatever. Then he would mention it. 

“Feral?” he asked, befuddled.

The centipede looked uncomfortable, but in a centipede way. “He doesn’t speak,” he said, “and attacks our employees-” Guards, Patton thought, but was polite enough not to say- “and refuses to eat. He doesn’t seem to respond when we attempt to communicate, and hasn’t made use of the hygiene facilitators in his quarters.”

“What do his quarters look like? Do they look like mine?” The Brehssen quarters were orange and red like the desert, with low shelves and a bed that was more like sand than a mattress. Patton had blankets, but he’d had to resort to sleeping on the floor, and the lights were always too bright. Wherever Brehssens were from, it sure had a lot of moons.

“They’re darker,” Emile said, “with softer bedding, but- better fortified, really. For a feral human, we thought it might be necessary.”

“Can I meet him?”

Emile pulsed darker colors. “We don’t have the means to break up a fight,” he said, firm, “or to deal with the wounds a human could inflict on government employees. I’m afraid that’s not an option."

“Right,” Patton said, and wished he had the energy to get angry, or that he wouldn’t just feel bad when he did. Aliens scared more easily than bunnies. “You can leave now.”

“Are there any issues with your care?”

“I want to go home,” Patton said, pushing back the grief with another close-lipped smile, “but if you mean things you actually want to help me with, I need a lot more food than this. Water, too.”

“Are these food requirements the same for all humans?” Emile asked, trill getting worse again, and Patton nodded. “Oh. Thank you,” the centipede said, and left in a hurry. Patton guessed that meant they’d been feeding the other human too little, too.

That night he woke up with a scream on his lips, mind screaming _danger danger danger_ like a fire alarm, unignorable- and someone far away screamed with it. Patton was on his feet before he realized he was moving. The door to his quarters was still unlocked.

“What’s going on?” he asked the nearest guard, forgetting to keep his voice down, and they shrilled and lashed out with the baton in their grip. Patton jumped back, hair standing on end- was that electric? That didn’t seem nice- and demanded, “Who’s screaming? Is someone hurt?”

“Go back to your quarters,” the guard shrilled, baring flat little teeth. Patton would’ve thought they were cute if they hadn’t tried to tase him. He still thought they were cute, but that was mostly because he’d always liked frogs and the guard looked a lot like one. It was hard to be scared of a frog.

“But what’s happening?” Patton snapped, and the fear hit him even harder, made him want to punch something or run for his life. 

Constant fear, worse and worse for years- a feral human screaming, and Patton’s heart screaming with it- and oh, fate always worked in mysterious ways- 

“Is that the other human?” Patton demanded, and the guard flinched back.

“You are not permitted to leave your quarters!”

“If he’s _hurt-”_

Suddenly Patton was on his knees, mind fuzzy with pain and muscles twitching, and in the distance the other human was screaming but it _wasn’t_ rage, he knew it wasn’t, because what would a human do if everyone thought he was a monster?

Patton had gotten good at repression a long time ago, and his soulmate’s emotions had always hurt. He stood up and smiled, agonized tears in his eyes, and the guard pressed themselves against the wall.

Patton guessed the taser had been meant to do a lot more damage than it had.

“That really wasn’t nice of you,” Patton managed. “Please don’t try to stop me again. You’re supposed to _help_ people who got abducted, not hurt them.”

The guard crouched low, back of their neck bared. They were shaking, but Patton couldn’t reassure them, and he doubted it would help, anyway. The terror had hit a fever pitch, sending spots through his eyes. He was already running.

Right turn. Left, another left, following the echoing shouts- and there was a group of employee-guards surrounding a door, with Remy outside bristling with panic. Patton said, remembering that Remy understood English at least, “Close the door behind me.”

No one stopped him from going in. He didn’t know whether to be glad at how easy it was or disappointed that they’d let a guest go into what they thought was horrible danger. 

It didn’t matter. Patton let the thought slip from his mind.

The Human quarters were darker than he’d expected, sharp-cornered and shadowy, with some cushions at one end and a space with a drain at the other. There was a boxy thing at the back that might’ve been a toilet, but it didn’t hold his attention for long; his eyes found the hunched shape in the center of the room, black-clothed and ragged, and stopped his heart in his chest.

Wariness choked back his voice, but he knew how to fight through it by now. “Hi,” he said, and smiled with all his teeth. The other human- his soulmate, he had to be after that flash of painful, hopeless shock- flinched. “I’m Patton.” He put a finger to his chest and said again, “Patton.”

His soulmate had light skin and dark hair with shaggy bangs and barely enough skin on him to cover the bones. His eyes were dark, too, undercut with deep bags, and he was hugging himself with one arm, the other fisted at his side. He looked Patton’s age. He looked terrified, worse at the sound of Patton’s voice, and the feel of it was even more painful up close.

Patton smiled at him again, trying not to sway, and said, “I’m... gonna lie down now. It really hurt getting zapped like that, and I was really _shocked_ that they did it in the first place, heh...” His vision blurred. He flopped onto the ground, only half as slow as he’d meant to, and made himself relax, arms splayed out like he was lounging in soft grass.

Like trying to get stray kittens curious enough to come up to him, letting himself hang out so he looked non-threatening. He didn’t think the guy would attack while he was down.

Still, the fear was catching. He tried not to tense and closed his eyes, breathing in and out until his heart slowed to something less painful. Soft footsteps shuffled closer. The other human said something in that same alien language, and Patton blinked up at him.

“Patton,” the other human finally repeated, and Patton nodded. His soulmate- his _soulmate,_ after all this time, and no wonder he’d always been so scared- stared down at him and crouched, biting his lip. A swell of sick, terrified worry made Patton gasp. “Virgil,” the other human said, tapping himself, and looked at Patton with wide, dark eyes.

“Virgil,” Patton echoed, wanting to grin or cry or both, desperately thankful. Virgil shuddered, breath hitching, and Patton said, pushing forward all the love he could, “Hi, Virgil. ‘M sorry, I’m just resting for a sec. I’ll be up in a jiffy.”

“Jiffy?” Virgil asked, nose crinkling at the word, and moved back a little. The motion was oddly slow, like he was easing himself back, keeping himself small. Patton pushed himself upright, gasping at the pull on the electrical burn on his chest, and the worry spiked again.

Oh. Was that all? “I’m okay,” Patton promised, and raised his shirt to show the reddened patch of skin. “I just got hit with the stick thing. That guard was more scared of me than I thought.” He frowned. “Um, can I ask you a question, though? Not that you have any clue what I’m saying, apparently, but... you don’t look so good, Virgil.”

Virgil startled at his name, and backed up in a hurry when Patton stood, scrambling to his feet and baring his teeth. 

“It’s okay!” Patton assured him, a little guilty. He should’ve known better than to move that fast. “I don’t wanna hurt you. I just wanted to know if you want a hug.”

A blink. Patton spread his arms, and the wariness darkened with suspicion. Right. Language barrier. 

How did you explain a hug, though? Hugs just _were_ , like puppies and the rain. Patton thought about it, then wrapped his arms around himself and rocked himself side to side. “Like that,” he said, blushing at the poor performance, and Virgil’s eyes widened. He inched closer, looking like he thought Patton was about to lunge at any second, and Patton had to stifle an excited grin.

Who knew what he was projecting, but whatever it was seemed to be helping; Virgil stopped in hugging range, shrinking into himself and watching Patton warily, and Patton- slowly, telegraphing his movements- stepped forward and wrapped his arms around him.

The bond _exploded_. Patton choked and squeezed tighter without meaning to, desperate confused longing and certainty that _it won’t last_ mixing him up and making him _want_ , and Virgil melted into him, burrowing his face into Patton’s shoulder. Somehow they ended up on the ground, Virgil in Patton’s lap; Patton brushed a hand through his soulmate’s tangled hair, getting a shiver of _overwhelmed_ in response. It was almost too much for him, too.

Neither of them let go.

“Virgil, Virgil, Virgil,” Patton murmured, sing-song, and the fact that Virgil hadn’t been hugged in- in _so long_ was already making him cry. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I should’ve found you sooner, you were always so _scared-_ ” His voice broke, and Virgil stiffened, drawing back to scan his face. Foreign anxiety made Patton cold.

Virgil said something like a question, concern leaking from him in waves, and Patton said, “I’m just sad, that’s all. I’m not hurt or anything.” He reached out and touched Virgil’s face again, shaky at how quickly his soulmate pushed into it, shivery and feeling like he expected the rug to pull out from under him at any second. He was so _scared_. What had they done to him, that he was still so scared?

Patton didn’t know how to fix it, but… Virgil’s hair really was filthy, and he liked being touched so _much_. Maybe they could start _somewhere_. 

“Is there somewhere I can get you clean?” Patton asked to fill the silence, scanning the walls. There’d been a drain, but the Brehssen quarters had had a weird tiny shower thing, so he didn’t know what this one would look like- _there!_ Except there was a weird shimmery opal thing in the wall, nothing like the Brehssen’s dull shower knob at all.

Patton twined his fingers between Virgil’s and stood, tugging him up, and Virgil followed him to the drain area, feeling mystified. Patton asked, “This is a shower, right? I’m kinda flying blind here.” 

Virgil stared. Patton poked the opal thing on the wall to no avail. Then, deciding that looking silly would probably help his case, he smacked it with his palm.

The flood of lukewarm water made him yelp and jump backwards, barely catching himself on the wall. Virgil snorted, then froze, bond flooding with horror- but Patton was giggling at himself, too. 

“I don’t know _water_ I expected,” he said, one of his weaker puns, and wrung out the hem of his shirt. The flood of water continued, falling neatly into a basin that trickled toward the drain.

A _fancy_ shower. Patton guessed being an alien had some perks. 

Virgil glanced between the shower and Patton and tilted his head, saying something low and wry. Patton blinked at him, uncomprehending, and Virgil’s face fell, bond flickering scared again.

 _That_ wasn’t allowed. Patton made a snap decision, trying not to blush, and pulled off his shirt. Then he tilted his head back into the water, letting his hair get soaked, and ran his fingers through his bangs. “Like this!” he explained with an embarrassed smile, motioning at Virgil. He did it again. “Can I do this for you?”

Virgil’s face went pink, _hope-terror-wariness-shame_ flicking past too fast to catch. He swallowed visibly, pulling off his own shirt, and crept forward, ducking into the water with a searching, bewildered look. Patton tried not to cry out at all the scars. 

Puckered pink wounds like from bullets, white burn scars and what looked like _claw marks,_ little lines all up his arms like someone had cut into him at every millimeter- 

“I’m sorry,” Patton said again, helpless and almost crying with it, and Virgil paled, glancing back at his shirt. “No, no, it’s okay,” Patton added in a hurry, reaching out for his hand again and forcing a smile. “You don’t have to hide them, I was just being sad again. Not your usual Patton.”

He crouched and patted the side of the basin, feeling his smile get a little more real at Virgil’s blooming curiosity. His soulmate edged down in front of him, tensing when Patton circled around to his back. 

“It’s okay, I’m right here,” Patton said, keeping his voice light. They were right next to the water; Virgil only had to tilt his head sideways to wet his hair again, but Patton just cupped his hands in the stream and let the water run down his arms, trickling it over Virgil’s shoulders.

Once Virgil’s hair was nice and soaked, he brushed a finger over one of the easier tangles, giving Virgil time to jerk away or stand. Virgil’s breath hitched, but he didn’t move; instead, he pushed back into the touch, making Patton’s face heat. It wasn’t _indecent_ or anything- he’d never take advantage of anyone like that, not when they were so starved for _any_ touch- but he remembered Logan talking about human instincts, and social grooming had been a big one. Someone playing with your hair made you feel included. Virgil had been isolated for so _long_.

He had to be careful, was all. 

Patton leaned against Virgil’s back to remind him he was there and worked through the tangles as gently as he could, humming snatches of songs and aching at how Virgil pressed back into him, how his emotions went mushy and terrified, clinging and horridly grateful. After a little while, he realized Virgil was crying.

“Oh, honey,” he choked out, unable to stand it any longer, and pulled him into another hug. Skin-on-skin felt much more intimate, Virgil’s hair all soft now and brushing his cheek, but his own embarrassment didn’t matter. Virgil was sobbing, hitching little cries like he didn’t expect an answer, not even now, like no one would care-

 _Patton_ cared. Patton cared so much he was burning with it, so much it must have been drowning Virgil like a tidal wave, and he couldn’t, didn’t know how to answer except with touch- he touched their foreheads together, pressed kisses all over Virgil’s face, his jaw and nose and cheeks, glancingly over his mouth. 

“Virgil,” he whispered, and pecked another kiss on his forehead, because it was one of the two words they had in common. “Virgil, Virgil, Virgil, I love you, I love you so much, I’m so sorry-”

“Patton,” Virgil choked out, trembling close. _“Patton.”_ And more alien words, a whole flood of them, more than Patton could ever try to decipher.

“I know,” he said anyway, because the tone was there, and the emotions always had been, had shadowed him all his life. “I know, sweetheart, I really do. I promise, I _promise,_ I’m not going anywhere.”

He didn’t know if it was true, but Emile had claimed his government meant to help- that they wanted humans safe. Patton would have to hold them to their word.

**Author's Note:**

> TW: implied/referenced torture/experimentation, touch starvation, alien abduction


End file.
